 Reference Base  Accounts of the pretended serpent-stone called Pietra de ... |
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Sloane, H., 1749. Accounts of the pretended serpent-stone called Pietra de Cobra de Cabelos, and of the Pietra de Mombazza or the Rhinoceros Bezoar, together with the figure of a rhinoceros with a double horn. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 46 (492): 118-119, 124-125, pl. 1
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[118]
Chelsea, April 19, 1749
The first I have heard and do believe to be a stone found in the stomach or intestines of the Rhinoceros, not, that I know, taken notice of by any natural historian, excepting Redi. The place where it is said to be found is on the South East coast of Africa, according to the information Redi had of it, and from which place I had the two horns figured in these Transactions no. 470 by Dr. Parsons, which were tied together across, the better I believe to preserve the short skin that connected them on the nose of that animal, so that the strait and crooked horn might appear distinct, as they do in a very intire small brass medal of Domitian in my collection.
[119]
Whether the rhinoceros, who bore these two horns, be a distinct species of that animal from that of Asia, future travellers must determine.
These horns were given me by Charles Lockyer Esq; who was (as I have been told) sent in a ship of strength with a power given him by the East Indian and African Companies, to go on their affairs to that unfrequented coast which common travellers have been afraid to go to because of the barbarity and cruelty commonly said to belong to its inhabitants, and with the Egyptians, and from them the Greeks and Romans, had a greater intercourse and knowledge than with the southern parts of Asia, where that animal is generally found with only one horn.
[124] Explanation of Tab.II
Fig.5. A coin of Domitian in small brass, having on the foreside the figure of a rhinoceros with 2 horns growing out of his nose, the one above the other; which in the Numismata Pembrokiana, part I, tab. XVI no.68, the engraver has made like a tusk, or Densexertus of a boar and in Part 3 Tab.39 he has made the two horns on his nose like two tusks, and has likewise given him two horns close to his ears; so that he has made him a creature with four horns; and therefore it was thought proper to give an accurate copy of the medal, in order to clear up that famous passage of Martial, Lib. de Spectac. no.xxii,
Namque gravem gemino cornu sic extulit ursum,
Jactat ut impositas taurus in astra pilas.
which has for many ages puzzled the critics, all thinking that the rhinoceros was a real unicorn or animal, which never had more than one horn. And beside the double horns, or gemino cornu, in Sir Hans Sloane's Museum, I am told Dr. Mead has got another geminum cornu likewise from Africa.
Fig.6 is the reverse of the same medal, with this inscription: IMP DOMIT AUG GERM and in the middle SC.
Fig.7 is the figure of the rhinoceros magnified, that the position of the two horns might appear distinct and plain.
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